Chessedelic.com
Your Voice In Chess

In the previous articles How To Build A Chess Opening Repertoire - Part I: Getting The Lay Of The Land and How To Build A Chess Opening Repertoire - Part II: Your Style, I discussed the importance of having a chess opening repertoire and the issue of playing style. This should give you enough information to compose your own chess opening repertoire. In this article I want to give some tips and pointers on how to relate to your chess opening repertoire. They involve mastering a certain mindset and the avoidance of some dangers.

Tip 1: Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan!

Having a chess opening repertoire involves a lot of discipline. You have to make important decisions about the different systems you want to play and once you have done that, you have to elaborate on them. This elaboration is a life time thing, so don’t bother getting it right the first time. Grandmasters are constantly adjusting and expanding their repertoire. The main thing here is that you actually start playing and maintaining your repertoire.

Tip 2: You Will Get The Best Results By Sticking To Your Repertoire. So, STICK TO IT!

What’s the use of a chess opening repertoire if you don’t play it? Or if you play it briefly and then make a switch? If you don’t play your repertoire, you will never learn to properly understand an opening or get some useful practical experience with it. Also you will not benefit from the fact that you know it.

My suggestion is that you play a certain repertoire for at least a year. Then, if you simply have become too curious or feel drawn to other openings, make a switch. But at least you will be carrying something worthwhile with you throughout the rest of your chess career.

Of course, you can also overdo it. This (over)identification with your opening(lines) may lead to bad results, especially if you don’t try to learn from earlier opening mishaps and fix your repertoire. Don’t lose this kind of reflective flexibility!

On my local chess club we have several players playing the same repertoire over and over again. I suppose that’s fine, because the Benoni f.i. is a decent enough opening, also when you play it for the 384^th time. But if you keep repeating the same dodgy sidelines in which you got some serious beatings, then you have to fix it and look for different paths.

Another very important note here: Don’t blame losses on the opening! Your loss is normally caused by you mishandling the tactics or strategy of a position. Be mature about this. So, don’t go switching to another opening repertoire just because you had some bad results in a certain system. Rather, analyze the game and try to find out what the relation is between your loss and the opening (if there is any at all) and then improve on your opening play.

When fixing your opening repertoire, don’t make any unnecessary concessions. The fear of sharp lines f.i. could make you lose the objective edge, just learn these sharp lines, practice them and play them!

If you somehow don’t feel at ease in the positions that arise from the opening from a more general point of view, that is a different matter, it is more style related. For that I refer you back to How To Build A Chess Opening Repertoire - Part II: Your Style.

Tip 3: Focus First On Understanding The Openings, Not On Memorizing The Moves

Understanding an opening is a goal that is much more realistically achieved than the memorization of its lines. Understanding is a better help when you find yourself on unknown territory because you can base your choice of move on basic principles of play, and those of the opening. Don’t forget: You may be able to out-memorize your opponent, but it’s impossible to out-memorize a chess game! There will always be a moment when you are on your own!

Another point: In chess it’s about the understanding of positions, not the remembrance of opening names. It does not help you to know that this or that opening is called such and so. It makes it easier to talk about it and discuss with other players as it’s all part of the jargon, but this kind of knowledge will not help you to play better chess! So even though it may look impressive if someone knows all the names of the chess openings and their side lines, it does not reveal anything about his playing strength!

Tip 4: Try Bouwmeesters Method

Speaking of memorization I would suggest that you try out Bouwmeesters method of studying an opening. But you have to promise me that you will give precedence to understanding the opening ;-)

In his book “Chess as a profession” Bouwmeester suggests a regime for memorizing your opening. Considering f.i. that your program consists of 16 parts, you can study and repeat it using the following schedule (1,5 - 2 hrs per day):

He writes his book for professionals, so keep in mind that you may want to adjust this to fit your possibilities.

Tip 5: Create And Keep Organized Collections Of Games Played With Your Chess Opening Repertoire

Creating a collection of games played with your chess opening repertoire, builds your referential materials and eases your task to maintain your repertoire. It is nice and useful to see how strong players handle the opening and how you are handling the opening over time! Of course you have analyzed each and every game before they find there way to the collection ;-)

Tip 6: Pick Model Players!

Model players can be your opening coaches and can be of great inspirational value! If you are playing the 6.Be3 line against the Najdorf f.i., then it makes sense to pick Anand as your model player for this particular line! Look up his games, analyze them and add them to your collections.

Tip 7: Practice Openings In Blitz Or Rapid And Then Analyze Immediately

I’m not a big favorite of blitz chess, certainly not when it comes to improving our chess. But if used with care and diligence blitz does have it’s merits. You can use games with shorter time controls (for this I prefer rapid) as practice sessions for your openings. Just try them out, gather some practical experience and analyze what has been going on. This method can quite quickly show you want you don’t know or understand yet. Be moderate with your play rate! Don’t play 100 blitz games first. No, just play 4 or so and then analyze!

Tip 8: Never Lose Track Of The Relative Importance Of Openings

One of the dangers of “being in love” with chess opening and your repertoire is a lack of general chess understanding. Keep improving your general chess understanding also! Openings are important, but they are not everything.

What’s Next?

Well, we have come to the end of a three part article series. I have enjoyed doing this one and have received lots and lots of feedback on them so far!

If you have not done so already, consider signing up for my Chess Improvement Membership Site Better Your Chess. If you do, you can claim “Spice Up Your Openings” by IGM Karel van der Weide as one of your free bonuses!

Good luck with your chess opening repertoire!

Waldemar,
Tipping you off

Hi all,

In this video I will take you behind the scenes of the Better Your Chess membership!

Hi all,

The moment has come, Better Your Chess is open!
We now accept subscriptions.

If you want to become a better chess player just go to:

http://www.betteryourchess.com
and download the Info Pack, or go to:

http://www.betteryourchess.com/signup
and immediately subscribe to the membership!

Your advantages are many fold:
1. get affordable and realistic chess improvement
2. raise your ELO with 100-200 points
3. receive interactive quality training
4. adopt a coherent vision on chess improvement

And… let’s not forget YOUR FREE BONUSES
that add up to about $30,= in value!

I’m very much enjoying the creation of
inspiring chess resources for you,
and you are more than welcome.

By the way, don’t forget:
I’m accepting 100 members only for the first enrollment!
After that I will take a time out to consolidate and evaluate.
It is my goal to re-open some time later this summer,
but at higher subscription fees, because I’m confident that the site will have grown in value!

Just give yourself a chance and try it!

Waldemar
improving your chess

Hi all,

Many of you have been waiting for this moment for quite some time now. I’m launching my Chess Improvement Membership Site Better Your Chess! I explain everything in the video below.

Check it out!

During the recent Super GM Tournament in Sofia - Bulgaria, Magnus Carlsen was on the verge of winning it. In the last round however he played to sharply against Alexei Shirov who beat him after tremendous complications in a Sveshnikov. This meant that Shirov won the tournament and that Magnus came second.

Below Carlsen’s game from the first cycle against Veselin Topalov who was also doing very well on his home turf and eventually ended up in third place.
The game was a Moscow variation in which it was difficult for Topalov to get counterplay. When Carlsen initiated some activity Topalov lost the thread in the ensuing complications after which he was fighting an uphill battle. Carlsen decided matters with some nice strokes.

Enjoy!

Waldemar

A little while ago I started discussing the subject of building a chess opening repertoire in How To Build A Chess Opening Repertoire - Part I: Getting The Lay Of The Land. I discussed which considerations play a role in building your chess opening repertoire and gave some advice. If you have not yet read it, I strongly suggest you do that first. In this second part, I want to discuss the issue of your style, your experiences with certain openings and how your style relates to certain openings. Next I will do some suggestions.

Your Experience Sofar

If you are reading this it could be that you have no opening repertoire at all or you have “some sort” of an opening repertoire. In either case you would like to improve the situation and start making that “set of agreements with yourself” that I spoke of in How To Build A Chess Opening Repertoire - Part I: Getting The Lay Of The Land. Your previous experience with certain openings can be a useful indicator for building your repertoire. If you have taken notes of your games and created a history of them in a database for instance, I suggest you go through them and analyze your overall results with all the different openings you have played so far. This exercise should provide you with some statistics as to what openings you played the most and which ones you had success with or not. Try to figure out if you liked playing certain openings or not and why that was. This is a big indicator for your preferred playing style! Also try to figure out in what measure the opening played an important role in the outcome of the game.

Different Styles

The previous exercise has probably given you some pointers as to what positions you like to play or not. If the exercise does not suggest differently, then it makes sense to build on the openings you already play (if they are decent that is), start calling them “My repertoire” and try to deepen you knowledge and understanding of them. If for some reason the exercise does not provide you with a clear picture, or if you would like some pointers for your playing style, then it makes sense to start looking for style indicators. Below I will list a number of different style indicators. Your preferences most likely refer to one or more of the terms below:

1.    visionary
2.    detailed
3.    positional
4.    tactical
5.    calculation
6.    feeling
7.    concrete
8.    intuition
9.    defensive
10.    attacking
11.    counter-attacking
12.    waiting
13.    initiative
14.    open
15.    closed
16.    contact
17.    maneuvering
18.    (big) center
19.    guerilla
20.    dynamics
21.    statics
22.    single plan
23.    multi plan

These terms refer to one of two:
1.    the way in you which you like to approach chess
2.    the specifics of a chess position

It makes sense now to place them in a table and describe them in more detail while simultaneously matching them to certain example openings.

Ok, so we have done that! The table is not meant to be exhaustive by the way. You can probably think of more style indicators pointers and matching openings. Also some of the pointers are closely related such as visionary, positional and intuitive on the one hand and detailed, tactical and concrete on the other.

What’s important to note here is that ideally you strive for a mixture of these styles, because we all need them from time to time to handle different chess positions. Positional games hopefully lead to a build up where you have to use tactics to reap the fruits of your earlier play. And likewise if you are good at tactics you need some strategical skills to bring about favorable positions. This brings us at a funny point however.

All the big guns have plenty of both strategical and tactical skills, right? Yes, I suppose they do! And yet, we can still clearly point out any differences in style. Kasparov is (was) the great attacker, calculator and proponent of concrete play. His great nemesis Anatoly is (was) pretty much the opposite namely the visionary, positional and intuitive player.

So there seems to be a point where standard and basic chess skill cross a border and shift into style. And beyond this point you can really try and incorporate your style into your own chess games. This is the area where preference and avoidance emerge. It is after all possible to prefer or avoid certain moves and lines without doing harm to the basic objective value of your position. I suppose that’s what makes our game also so enjoyable!

For instance Kasparov might choose to play 6.Bg5 in a Najdorf, Karpov may prefer 6.Be2 etc. without doing any objective harm to their position. It is just that they prefer the positions that arise from these respective moves. Bg5 normally leads to sharp and concrete play, whereas 6.Be2 tends to lead to a quieter game. What both players were trying to do, was getting into positions where they could optimize their chances to make use of their strong points and diminish those of the opponent.

And why do you think Anand beat Kramnik in Bonn 2008? Because Anand managed to bring about dynamic, imbalanced and tactical positions, and Kramnik wasn’t up to the task at some moments. Do you remember the 5th game for instance? Kramnik was relying on the better endgame, but the position was more concrete than that and all of a sudden he was surprised by Anand’s tactical 34…Pe3!, which immediately won the game. He simply had not treated the position with enough concreteness whereas Anand had  calculated this trick several moves earlier.

Now you might argue that it was an ordinary blunder to go for the trade-off into the endgame and that normally Kramnik would have seen in coming - basic chess skill, right? – but that’s also my point. The earlier play had forced Kramnik to solve concrete problems. He could not use any of his dogma’s or strive for a small and clear advantage. It is very conceivable that that cost him considerable time, effort and psychological energy. From that point of view it seems understandable that he would crack up and allow the trade-down resulting in 34…Ne3! Let me say one more thing about this match. Go try and figure out in what style Kramnik won their 10th game! Need I say more?

Ok, it is nice to look at the great players, but the idea is that you try this with your own repertoire. What style oriented decisions can you make? Well, preferably those that bring about positions in which you can put your strong points to work! Let me be your gimmy pig.

My Style And Repertoire

You have probably noticed that the style indicators come in pairs. Let me describe my style by indicating in which direction the scale of the balance tips for each pair. I will indicate my preferences in bold:

visionary - detailed
positional - tactical
calculation - feeling
concrete - intuition
defensive - attacking - counterattacking
waiting - initiative
open - closed
contact - maneuvering
(big) center - guerilla
dynamics - statics
single plan - multi plan

My (global) repertoire is as follows:
I play 1.d4 to try and reach strategical positions in which I can be guided by my intuition. I tend to choose clearer lines over complicated ones.
Against 1.e4 my defense of choice is the counterattacking Sicilian. I don’t like to be passive and always want to have some plans of my own… I often play the Accelerated Dragon, because I know it quite well and have build up some experience with it. It also has some nice ambush-like features to it and fits in with my style.
Against 1.d4 I like to play the King’s Indian. It normally leads to clear cut chain pawn plans and closed maneuvering positions or otherwise static positions (f.i. the exchange variations with d4xe5) that I know pretty well and have a lot of experience with. It also fits in with the notion of counter attack.

Suggested Steps

Well, we have come to end of part II of this article. I hope you bring the following elements together:
1.    Do the “Previous Experience” exercise
2.    Match the style indicators with the result of that exercise to figure out your playing style or let the style indicators suggest your playing style by reading through the descriptions and asking yourself: “Is this me?”
3.    Compose or adjust your opening repertoire by choosing openings that match your style indicators. I have given some example openings in the overview. If you have questions on how to classify a certain opening feel free to contact me.

In the third and last part of this article I will discuss the issue of how to relate to your opening repertoire. In the mean while, leave your comments if you like.

Cheers,

Waldemar
Styling

In a 3.Bb5+ Sicilian, Ivanchuk aimed for a Maroczy Bind. Shirov obliged and fianchettoed his dragon bishop. Shirov aimed for the freeing d6-d5 break and achieved it. Probably in trying to prevent a simplification of the position Ivanchuk pushed his luck a little bit too far. After a nice tactical intermezzo by Shirov he soon found himself at a disadvantage. Ivanchuk could have defended more stubbornly, but after another mistake Shirov showed impressive technique to win the game.

Enjoy the video!

Download PGN

In 1997 Anand managed to execute a nice and deadly combination against French top player Joel Lautier. In a messy Scandinavian middlegame one of Lautier’s bishops got trapped. This proved to be decisive in the end.

Enjoy the video!

Waldemar

Hi all,

Today I did an experiment live commenting two blitz games from the 2007 Pivdenny Bank Chess Cup in Odessa. It concerns Harikrishna - Morozevich & Morozevich - Harikrishna.

The first video is of bad quality, the second one is already better ;-)

Enjoy!

Waldemar
Experimenting

Game #1: Harikrishna - Morozevich :

Game #2: Morozevich - Harikrishna:

Last week I posted Chess Puzzle #4.
Below you will find the solution!

Enjoy!